3 Ways To Surge Sales Now!

Even though you still haven’t vacuumed the beach sand out of the back of the SUV and there’s still a few sprays or squeezes of SPF left in your sunscreen you know summer is coming to an end. The days are shorter, colder and the work you procrastinated away all summer long has piled up, or sits right where you left it July 4th. So a long look in the mirror acknowledges, “Time to get back to work!” For sales, it means getting things in hyper gear so you can let the tail follow the dog and bring home a successful year.

Whether a road warrior or business owner you know that a good part of successful selling is simply effort. If you’ve been around a while you probably also know that working smart as well as hard is the real margin maker. But, whether you have all the years and scars or still have your fresh face of optimism everyone can benefit by smart focus. Don’t just get in and “plug away,” sure you’ll feel the hard work but for the real payoff dig into these 3 ideas to really power your fourth quarter selling.

1.) THE UNEXAMINED PROCESS YIELDS DIMINISHING RETURNS!

Processes are living things, they change, evolve, refine and slip. Most selling professionals will tell you they have a good process and if they get in front of the right people…yadda, yadda, yadda. Process slippage happens, we lose the edge on what we need to do when. What we don’t like to do gets pushed aside and what we hope will work gets more effort. “I’m not going to make those calls because my social media marketing could bring me so much more.” That’s a typical rationalization, so is, “I’ve been doing this a long time, I know how to sell.”

In both cases there is truth but there is also cover, sometimes they are scabs over old wounds, sometimes they are using hope as a strategy. Neither makes you money. The two elements of your process to examine now are first, how are you getting in front of decision makers and second how are you aggressively converting leads into deals? This is true whether you are selling yourself or responsible for a team. You may have formal or informal training in each or perhaps you just learned at the school of hard knocks. To get the plan for how you will surge your sales re-construct a prospecting plan by honestly evaluating your strategy. Make sure you have a system to move prospects to customers and quickly disqualify pretenders so your valuable time is put to good use.

2.) ATTITUDE AND MOTIVATION BE DAMNED, SCHEDULE YOUR WINNING BEHAVIORS!

The good intentions lining your road to gold are often dented by a shortfall from the motivation motor and life isn’t always rosey so sometimes we dwell on the thorns. Not feeling “into it” is the chief excuse in procrastinator’s handbooks. What you need to do is take the analysis you did in step one and put your honest, measured, evaluations for prospecting into your schedule. Don’t settle for the “I’ve got to do more of this,” and the “No question I should do more of that,” and being busy isn’t the measuring stick.

To Nike them (just do it) you need to put them on your schedule. Not just a week at a time but at least a month at a time. Create a count of how many whats you need to do and instead of vague future references to what you’ll do let your calendar tell you what to do today! Who to call, where to go, who to write, how many, when, etc. Let your goal be to do the scheduled behaviors you have verified to be successful, even the ones you don’t love.

3.) ACCOUNTABILITY LEADS TO COUNTING LOTS OF MONEY!

So many skilled and hard working sellers do these first two steps and get average results rather than dynamic. Why? It’s easy enough to rationalize luck or unavoidable distractions and sure, that can be true. There’s talent of course but by far the biggest reason I see so many clients struggle with results despite effort is a missing layer of accountability. It’s a sad truth that the intuition needed to strategize and ingenuity needed to schedule can get derailed because it just didn’t get done, the un-Nike. Guilt, fault and despair are good for self pity but they aren’t taxable and don’t help but having an accountability plan does and I’ve seen two kinds have phenomenal results:

Peer Pairing: Find a partner with similar needs to you to keep your feet held to the fire. There’s no outside consequence other than your own commitment but you get someone that you can meet or talk with regularly, weekly usually works (schedule it!). You exchange your plans for prospecting or following up on leads with clear quantities identified. You review that plan the following week reporting on completing the tasks. Your partner duty is to nod and acknowledge any distractions or delays but ask the question, how do we get this done now? How do we make up for that this week? Conversely, your success completing your planned tasks becomes competitive and contagious, two characteristics in all good sellers.

The second option is with a good coach. This can be internal but there’s a real hedge if it’s the manager or boss. Our instincts to frame things in a positive light, make ourselves look good whatever the results, can fog the harsh light of reality that a more disinterested party can provide. All selling business owners or sales teams can benefit tremendously from a coach who can be a regular accountability partner. We let you look at yourself honestly and face why things didn’t get done or work out and hold the opportunity to try again, try another tack and get both encouragement and information from a debrief on why the best laid plan went kerfluey. Your doubts are held in confidence and we look to have you commit to what you will really do to find your sucess.

Coaching doesn’t have to be time-consuming, thirty minutes a week might do it and your nature to try and please your guru means a better chance you’ll go and just do those behaviors. It’s the best ROI deal out there because whether it’s a company resource, an executive counselor or a Skype trainer you will be investing in you. That’s where every good salesperson should see the greatest return.

© 2017 Myeureka Solutions LLC